Profile: The rural north of Gloucestershire, the town of Tewkesbury and the strip of countryside between Cheltenham and Gloucester. The seat includes some of the outskirts of both Cheltenham (the villages of Prestbury and Swindon Village) and Gloucester (Longford and Churchdown) and a large swathe of countryside, including the northern part of the Cotswolds area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Tewkesbury itself is a small town known for its historic Abbey, but the largest settlement is actually the more modern residential development of Bishops Cleve to the North of Cheltenham. The constituency includes Cheltenham Racecourse and Gloucestershire Airport.

Politics: A reliable Conservative seat, held by the party in various forms since the late nineteenth century.

Current MP

LAURENCE ROBERTSON (Conservative) Born 1958, Bolton. Educated at St James CE Secondary and Bolton Institute of Higher Education. Former charity fundraiser and PR consultant. Contested Makerfield 1987, Ashfield 1992. First elected as MP for Tewkesbury in 1997.

Yes Gloy Plopwell rides again.
This seat was actually targetted by the LDs in 1997. They achieved a lot of their targets that year, but their performance was a little patchy, and not just in seats where they were beaten by Labour (like Bristol W & Conwy for example). Much of the electorate in this seat lives on areas which are essentially the hinterland of either Gloucester or Cheltenham (one of the main exceptions to this being the town of Tewkesbury itself). In 1997, the LDs lost out because the areas which are closest to Gloucester saw a large Labour vote, whereas those closer to Cheltenham were better for the LDs. Since then, Labour’s vote has been squeezed down, but some parts of the seat have some potential for the party & I think that Joe is right in that Labour will regain some lost votes in the areas closer to Gloucester in particular. It will be of course be a Con Hold.

Saying that, Labour didn’t do all that well in the Gloucestershire county council ward of Churchdown this year. The Lib Dems held the seat and the Tories were second about 450 ahead of Labour. Does anyone know if Labour carried it in ’97 and ’01 (or at least finished second ahead of the Tories)?

Is this a rare example of some territory that was in a Lib Dem or Labour seat in 1992 (i.e. Cheltenham 1992)
and in a Tory seat in 1997 (and 2001/5).?
That built up development north of Cheltenham – I’m not sure what seat it used to be in before this one,
but Cheltenham was a larger seat in 1992.

I have a friend who works for Laurence Robertson (and is not related to him or a lobbyist). Hopefully this doesn’t end up in a by-election as she would be out of a job. Doesn’t look great, but I guess probably more in the category of a standards investigation followed by an apology rather than a by-election. But lets see how he responds.

I got very excrited when Sky reported a Lib Dem gain here.
I think it would have been easily possible if they had come out for Brexit in particular seats only, whilst carrying on hard for the Remain votes elsewhere. WE’d have been looking at a clear majority if only that was done, with stupendous momentum.

They said what Joe? That’s extraordinary. (I actually had a vote in the neighbouring seat, Newham NE, in that election, though I campaigned in Ilford S which was narrowly gained.)
Mind you they also claimed that the Lib Dems had won Birmingham Perry Barr in 2001, which was as wide of the mark. I think the LDs may have carried Perry Barr ward itself, but certainly not the constituency.
This year, we heard reports that Labour had taken several seats – Aberconwy and Broxtowe I can certainly recall – which were in fact held narrowly by the Conservatives.

By the time Hastings declared I was convinced Amber Rudd was going to lose. It just seemed to be the way the night was going.

I don’t know why a boradcaster would report any result before it is made official – the exit poll (which is shared by all the broadcasters) gives viewers a good enough picture that there’s not much to do after that but wait for the counts to come in.

Shipley was a real disappointment, I too remember when they announced we’d won, Twitter went totally berserk, I didn’t realise till the next day that the Tories had actually held it.

As for how the media make these mistakes? I’ve come to the conclusion they are totally inept. I watched the BBC’s regional next day coverage of the election results online and the errors littering all reports was stunning….

They got the overall net gains/losses in practically every region wrong.
Declared that the Tories had held Southampton TEST by 34 votes while Labour increased their majority in ITCHEN
For some reason lumped the seat of DERBYSHIRE north east in the YORKSHIRE region report
Said that the Tories had held Stockton South since 2005, nope actually 2010
Said the Tories had held Reading East since 2010, nope actually 2005
Conflated a parties increase in total VOTES with an increased MAJORITY more times than I can recall

And that’s just the stuff I remember off the top of my head, I’m sure if you dug deeper you could find more stuff.
And on a related note just today the Telegraph put out a piece claiming Lab has a sexism problem using as evidence the “fact” that Corbyn apparently appointed Tom Watson as his deputy, which I’m sure came as a surprise to all those who voted for him.

“As for how the media make these mistakes? I’ve come to the conclusion they are totally inept.”

Even their experts are woefully informed at times.

Example – Newsnight political editor Nick Watt last night reported about Theresa May saying she would be leading the Tories into the next election. He made a comparison with “Mrs Thatcher saying she would go on and on and on before the 1987 election”. Which is of course totally wrong, as she said it some time after the 87 election. As I vividly remember even as an 11 year old at the time. Of course you don’t have to be a genius to work out that she would never have said such an arrogant thing on the eve of an election.

I also heard that Kate Hoey had lost Vauxhall to the LDs on election night. This proved to be wrong by well over 20,000 votes. I wonder if Gloy Plopwell has secured himself a position within the BBC or Sky, or even both – or rather, I might do if I didn’t know who Gloy actually is. Maybe Miriam Purdom has instead.

My recollection was that it was in 87 and was -probably – pre-General Election. And yes that’s right. And so was Nick Watt

THATCH: “Yes, people do know where they stand with us. Yes, they do know we are strong government. Yes, they do know we have a property-owning democracy the like of which we have never had, which will give opportunity in the future we have never had before. Yes, I hope to go on and on, because I believe passionately in our policies.”

It was an interview to John Cole on 11 MAY 1987. Exactly a month b4 the GE and was in response to the Q. “Will this be your last General Election as leader of the Conservatives?”

It’s described as a post election interview on YouTube but given that you have the transcript I’m guessing it and my memory are wrong. What a very foolhardy thing to say before an election. Clearly it sowed the seeds of her demise, at her moment of biggest triumph.

In the same answer she says….”I think it really is a manifesto to set the course to go up to the end of the century.”

So massive over confidence to say the least.

But back to Nick Watt…he said on News night, ‘Mrs T said she would go on and on and on’….I wonder if he deliberately added the extra “and on” which makes sound a lot worse than what she actually said which was, “I hope to go and on”

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